I stared at him.
“What?” I must have heard him wrong.
He wasn’t going to kiss me now, while I bled in the tub wearing mostly nothing.
“Can I kiss you?” he repeated, leaning forward like a beautiful statue about to tip over on top of me, but when the end of his nose touched my cheek, it was warm, soft skin, alive and real.
I nodded as I felt his breath against my cheek, warm, a distraction from the pain, the difficulty of every breath.
His lips barely brushed mine when the door crashed open. My dad was there, grabbing Sean by the throat, pinning him against the wall while he stared at me, at the pile of wet and bloody clothes on the floor.
“You took her to the lake,” he hissed at Sean, gripping his throat tighter. Sean was taller than my dad, but not by too much. He didn’t fight my dad though, he simply stared back at him, denying nothing.
“He followed me and rescued me, again,” I said reaching for my dad, then gasping as the movement pulled my sides. “Dad, let go of him,” I whispered, feeling dizzier than before.
When my dad let go of Sean, it seemed more to come over to me than because he’d softened towards Sean. I expected something bad, a lecture or something. I didn’t expect him to take his nice fatherly hands and shove my head under the water.
I struggled, panicking, trying to get up where I could breathe, but he had gravity and years of experience torturing his students. I stopped struggling, instead I stared up at him through the water while pressure built and built around me. Finally my mouth opened and bubbles floated up, because if my dad wanted to kill me I may as well get it over with.
He let me go and I surfaced with a scream in my mouth that I bit back, stuffing my fist in my mouth while I stared at Sean. I took huge gulps of air, sobbing between breaths. I turned to my dad, wondering where the person who loved me had gone, who this cold, cruel stranger was.
He shook his head and stepped away from me, frowning like I was a puzzle he’d put together wrong.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said before he grabbed Sean and left the room, leaving me alone to blink water out of my eyes and try to breathe.
I struggled to breathe, to stop sobbing and to think happy thoughts, but there were no happy thoughts when my dad was as crazy as my mother was dead. I closed my eyes and rested my head on the edge of the tub counting my breaths, drifting from consciousness, wishing I could be like Junie and take charge, or Flop and go with the flow, or someone else who didn’t have psycho parents.
I heard a soft knock on the door and felt my body tense up as it slowly opened. I started breathing again when I saw Sean slip in giving me a slight smile, but his eyes seem a little bit big and dark like he wasn’t sure what the crap was going on there, but who did?
“I’m not sure…” he began, with uncharacteristic uncertainty before he took a deep breath like he was focusing then pulled off his wet shirt.
I stared at him, feeling something in my throat that wasn’t a giggle. I watched with this weird sensation of falling as he stripped down to orange underwear then sat on the edge of the tub, staring at me with an inscrutable expression on his face, like he was counting my breaths.
“We match,” I whispered, trying not to stare at his underwear, not sure where to look at the massive gorgeousness that was his body.
A smile flickered over his mouth, but his eyes remained cold, ice blue even as he stepped into the tub and slid down beside me, raising the water from my stomach up to my chin.
“Um,” I mumbled, as he wrapped his arms around me, sliding against me like my dad wasn’t somewhere in the near proximity waiting to cut off his head and drown me. I sighed as he pulled me closer against him, ignoring the pain of movement while I wrapped my arms around him, forgetting about my dad when his mouth briefly slid against the skin of my jaw.
“Sean…” My voice was a slightly hysterical rasp that wasn’t remotely attractive. So why did he tighten his hold on me, sliding his hands down the skin of my arms, resting for a moment on my hips before tracing up my sides to the gashes. I tensed, waiting for pain, but he stopped short of torture while his mouth continued to brush my neck, ear, throat.
“I have to kiss you,” he whispered sounding desperate, the way I felt when he stopped touching me, when his mouth hovered away from my skin.
I turned my head and arched up, pressing against him while I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, pulling his mouth down, a mouth I’d only dreamed of tasting. It wasn’t like Oliver. I tasted every centimeter of his lips, then deeper, drawing him in, unless he was drawing me in. Feeling him, not like it was a dream but like everything slowed down so I could experience every touch and taste individually in a way that made my heart pound and my chest tighten.
I pulled him down, deeper into the water, above me while I searched his skin with my hands, his hair, his shoulders, feeling the muscles flex beneath my touch as he held me against him, sliding his hands up and down my ribs, always stopping short of the gashes, until he didn’t, instead spreading his hands wide to encompass the wounds, squeezing my ribs as he had in the shop room, causing pain that made me hold him down tighter, bruising his mouth with mine, taking his lips in my teeth, scraping while I tasted, drank and drowned in him.
The sound of his moan softened my kiss, made me pull back to see, to check that he hadn’t changed his mind. His eyes were wide, pupils large and luminous with only a fingernail clipping of ice blue around them. He stared at me, struggling to hang back, to keep some of the distance between us even as his hands continued, like he was still searching for gills.
“I love you,” I whispered, caressing his face with my fingertips until he turned and captured them with his mouth, biting, sucking, kissing with his eyes finally closed, the look on his face… I exhaled, sinking down, against him, feeling wrapped in safety, like even the pain could be sweetened by his touch. When he claimed my mouth, it was different, every kiss deeper, every touch truer as my heart beat faster and faster against his chest.
I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think, I didn’t care. I was safe. Finally. Forever.
His grip tightened while the something grew in my chest until it exploded, not quite pain, not quite ecstasy, maybe both at the same time. I could breathe. I felt oxygen swell in my chest as though his kiss were my breath, my oxygen, his touch filling me with more than I knew what to do with. I felt light, giddy, like laughing beneath his kiss, until his teeth fastened on my bottom lip and I felt his tongue tracing over my skin, leaving trails of fire and ice.
“Your water is probably getting cold.” My dad’s voice came from far away, the sound almost making me want to pull away, but Sean held me against him, ignoring my dad like if we kept our eyes shut he would leave us alone.
I felt a hand against my hair, a gentle touch this time instead of the other thing, the time when he’d tried to drown me. The anger flared up at me suddenly as I rolled over, shoving Sean down against the tub as I came up, dripping, hissing at my dad while my throat tightened and my whole body poised for attack. I moved, faster than I could think, twisting his wrist while the word came out.
“No!” Deep, rich, powerful enough that I felt the word strike the air and condense around me.
My father’s face, his frown of worry stopped me from pressing out, from attacking him with the pressure that trembled in the air, like threads of sound I could use to cut him into pieces if I wanted.
Sean pulled me back, down against him, erasing the rest of the world with his arms while his mouth captured mine, scattering the sound like ripples across the top of the water.
The kiss was shorter as I pulled away, finding us alone in the bathroom my dad had left. The water really was getting cold. I felt awkward as I tried not to look at Sean, to not remember that I’d almost made my father’s ears bleed the way I’d done to him. I’d actually hissed at my father. Even if he had tried to drown me… Only that made no sense.
“Sean?” I asked, but my voice wasn’t weak a
nymore. It came out like a command.
He raised his eyebrows as I finally looked at him.
“Yes.” It was an answer, not a question. It would have been so annoying if his lips didn’t quirk into a smile as he absently stroked my side.
“Why did my father try to drown me? You didn’t do anything to stop him. Why?”
His eyes softened slightly while his hand came up to trace an outline of my face. “Stop breathing.”
I blinked at him. “What…”
His answer was a kiss, his movement sudden, the feel of his mouth hard against mine. I blinked at him, both of us looking while his mouth softened and his eyelids drifted down. I fought the grip of the kiss, the sensation that swirled through me, pulling me down as I tried to think, to understand, to breathe.
Only I didn’t need to breathe.
We were under the water, all of us except bits of knees and arms, heads, mouths, noses, not breathing together.
I panicked, flailing around, at least trying, but his grip was as unshakable as stone while he kissed me, not seeming to notice my struggles. I wasn’t drowning. Eventually I calmed down, staring at Sean, past him to the water’s surface and above that, the edges of the tub.
Something about his kiss could make me not need to breathe under water.
Finally, he relaxed his arms and pulled away to rise to the surface while I stayed, watching his face distort as it split the surface, waiting for my lungs to burn as I held onto my oxygen, but I could still breathe. Under the water. Without him.
He put his face down staring at me with something in his eyes, something so sharp and hot that I felt afraid. Not of drowning, of him.
“Watergirl,” he said, the sound echoing strangely beneath the water, the words like a hiss in my ears.
“Sean,” I said, hearing my own voice loud, like a shout that made him blink and pull back for a second, like it had surprised him as much as me.
He smiled though as he lowered his body, his face, eyes caught on my mouth.
“Stop.” I hadn’t meant to shout, but he flinched again before he continued. I braced against his chest, rolling over as I pushed him down until I broke through the surface, seeing him beneath me, as I must have looked to him. I blinked as I continued up until I sat on the edge of the tub. Suddenly, breathing wasn’t so easy. I instinctively grabbed my ribs, feeling the fluttering as the gashes moved under my fingers, still raw, throbbing, but moving, functioning, part of me.
“I have gills,” I whispered right before everything went dark.
Chapter 36
I woke up underwater. It was everything I’d ever had nightmares about, but breathing was not the problem. The problem was the rest of it. What was I? Was I Soremni, like Sean’s dad, Vashni like his mom, or something else, something with gills in the wrong place, something water wanted to kill?
The biggest problem right away was the breathing. So… breathing isn’t something you’re supposed to learn when you’re seventeen. It took me a week before I consistently stopped passing out when I wasn’t in the tub. I was so sick of that tub by the end of the week. Multiple lungs were a complication in my life that I didn’t need, but whatever.
The worst thing, or the most disgusting was the slime, mucous, whatever. It came out of my skin all over my body leaving huge strings like boogers when I tried to pull it off. Sean told me that the mucous secretion would calm down after a little while, well, he told my dad that because I wasn’t allowed to talk to him.
The first time I’d seen him, after I’d found myself in the dark in the tub and had climbed out, shaking and freaking out, I’d managed to fall down the stairs and into Sean before I’d passed out. Meeting him like that, knocking him off his feet while I struggled to breathe and see, because seeing was easier for me in the dark… Not good.
It was worse the next time I woke up my dad was there, in the dark of the bathroom, a face I could see as easily as if we were in the bright sun. He knew what I was, and worse, what my mother was.
“A long time ago, in the ages of myths and dreams…”
“Dad, I have freaking gills! Just tell me what’s going on with me? Why is mucous coming out of my elbows?”
“There was a world where dragons ruled the sky, the water people ruled the sea, and man ruled the land.”
“Thanks for listening. It shows me that you really care. Where’s Sean? Is he okay from when I knocked him down the stairs?”
“I majored in mythology in College,” my dad answered with a hurt look, like this was the time for me to humor him. “I want you to understand the scope…”
“Long time ago there were sea people. Yeah. Please don’t tell me about dragons unless they’re relevant. If I start breathing fire I’m going to seriously kill myself.”
He shook his head slightly. “There was an island called ‘The Soul of the Siren’, and on that island there lived a race of those not quite sea, not quite land. They were both and neither at the same time.”
“Right. So people with gills. I know all about that.”
He shook his head suddenly furious. “No. The sea people like Sean are nothing like you. The son of the traitor has no heart, no honor. They could survive on land if they had to, but could never hesitate to slaughter a human, much less have children with one of us. The Sirens, the women were the link between sea and land, song and story, human and monster…”
“Wait. Siren? Sean said something about Sirens. Like the women who lure men to their deaths and drink their blood or something?”
I stared at my dad while he shrugged like that wasn’t the craziest thing he’d ever heard.
He sighed. “You sing. You’re linked to music, to water, with a voice powerful enough to rip the air to shreds. When you’re submerged in the water your gills supplying you with oxygen that makes your other lungs a tool to harness that power…”
“Power? You call making people’s ears bleed a power? Wait. That was before I was breathing under water. What now?” My voice was growing louder, shriller, and my father winced, covering his ears with his hands while I struggled to get it together.
“Yes. Destructive power might not be something you’ve ever craved, but you certainly have the potential. Not only can you destroy, you can protect. Power can be used for many causes.”
“Thanks, dad. I feel much better now. So, I’m a Siren? That’s what mom was before she died? How did she drown if she had gills? Hers worked, right?”
He sighed. “Can I tell you the story?”
I shook my head before I shrugged helplessly. I crossed my arms over the towel that I’d been wrapped in when I woke up. At least it covered most of my body and ripped underwear while I sat in the tub with my arms against the edge, listening to my dad’s ‘explanation’.
“As I was saying,” he continued and then told me a really long story about this island and the people on it who were torn apart by the war between the land and sea until there was nothing left of them but myths and legends, only it turned out that they’d simply learned how to hide, with humans or gill folk, whichever they preferred. Master’s of disguise, or something. I listened to the mythology until I couldn’t help but break in.
“So, if my mother had gills, how was it possible for her to drown?” I didn’t see how the story really had anything to do with the important stuff.
My dad’s frown made me feel cold and sick, but I refused to look away. “She didn’t.”
I nodded and finally looked down, staring at the blanket over my lap.
“So, she was murdered.”
“No, she’s not dead. She’s still in the lake. Someone hired people to kill her, but they didn’t do it, only crushed her upper lungs so that she’s trapped there in the lake without the ability to speak, sing, or be your mother.”
“She’s in the lake?” I stared at him while my mouth went dry and I had this weird idea I knew exactly what he was going to say next.
“Yes. She ripped your gills open. She must have thought you were drownin
g or that there wasn’t a chance to hide you anymore, that you had to be able to protect yourself. It didn’t help to have that traitor’s son hanging around you all the time. I tried to keep you away from that world, from the lake, watching you suffer after we sewed your gills shut… I’m sorry you had to find out about it like this. If he hadn’t dragged you into that world…” His jaw became tight while the fury burned in his eyes.
I blinked. That was about all I could do for twenty-four hours. My mother wasn’t dead, oh no, instead, she was a monster in the lake that had ripped me open. Awesome. All that time when I’d been singing to her, she’d been listening. My dad didn’t understand all the technicalities that went along with being a Siren, but being compelled to sing, scream was part of the description. More awesome.
On the positive side, I could breed with Sean. Of course, our children would be Sirens, like me, compelled to shatter people’s eardrums if they were girls, and if they were boys, they’d be something else. My dad hadn’t enjoyed talking about it. He kept referring to the ‘traitor’s son’, until I got out another explanation. The kind that made everything else sound practically insane.
“Sean’s mother, queen of the Vashni, and Sean’s father, the Soremni king’s brother betrayed the king…”
“Sean’s dad is the Soremni king’s brother?”
My dad nodded. “I talked to the traitor’s son,” I rolled my eyes, “And it turns out, Oliver is the prince, trying to convince the traitor’s son to return with him and build up the kingdom. Apparently there are problems with their world.”
“Oliver is the prince? So, why is he collecting monsters?” I sat up, splashing my dad. “He thinks my mother is a monster? He’s going to put her in some gladiator thing?”
“Your mother can protect herself, Gen. Calm down.”
I took a deep breath and nodded, then shook my head. “How can my mother be the monster? I remember her. She was beautiful and good. So gentle and…” I started sobbing and didn’t stop for a long time while my dad patted me awkwardly on my head. I was a freak of the freaks and my mother had been hunted and broken, like my dad was afraid I would be if anyone discovered what I was.
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